HOUSTON (Reuters) - Dextre the handyman space robot now has
the tools of his trade and is ready for work.

Astronauts from the shuttle Endeavour outfitted the
International Space Station's newly installed robotic
maintenance man with tools and cameras during a spacewalk that
ended early on Tuesday.

Veteran spacewalker Richard Linnehan and rookie Robert
Behnken were back in the station after an outing of almost
seven hours.

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"It's a pretty awesome view just looking down on
everything," Linnehan commented at one point as the duo floated
in space over 200 miles above the planet.

It was the third of five spacewalks scheduled for
Endeavour's busy 12-day visit to the orbital outpost.

It was not all smooth sailing.

The astronauts battled to secure a science experiment
outside of Europe's Columbus laboratory and in the end took it
back to the shuttle's payload bay.

The Canadian-built robot, dubbed Dextre, was assembled
during the mission's second spacewalk. It resembles a humanoid
stick figure with gangly 11-foot (3.4 meter) arms.

NASA says it will save astronauts from much of the routine
maintenance they currently do on arduous and potentially
dangerous spacewalks, enabling them to devote more time to the
experiments and other scientific activities.

Later on Tuesday after their sleep period, the space crews
will move Dextre by remote control to its base on the U.S.
space laboratory Destiny.

The shuttle crew arrived at the station on Wednesday to
install Dextre and deliver a storage room for an elaborate
Japanese laboratory that is due to arrive during NASA's next
shuttle mission in May.

NASA has 10 more flights planned to complete the $100
billion space station and deliver supplies before the shuttles
are retired in 2010. A final servicing call to the Hubble Space
Telescope also is scheduled for late summer.